It is no longer possible for brands to rely on awareness, familiarity and equity to achieve future success. Nowadays, brands must think of the customer relationship, how it listens, answers, engages, and the level of empathy customers have. How can the brand evolve to meet the future customer’s needs? Sustainable brands do this well, challenge the market place, and shake up the sector. We explore some case studies from inside and outside the sector, showing how brands are successfully managing these relationships and how they build their sustainability and future relevance.

It is estimated that disengaged employees cost the UK economy £64bn through lost productivity, poor service delivery, and reduced discretionary effort. So consider the impact employee engagement makes to your bottom line, human and financial resources. What could be the positive impact engaged employees have on operational performance and profit? How can you leverage a compelling employer brand to ensure you attract the right talent for the right jobs? And how do you use internal communications to effectively inform, engage and inspire employees to thrive?
Getting the brand right on the inside of the business will help maximise the brand on the outside. But it requires strategy and tactics to work together in harmony to create an employer brand consisting of loyal internal brand ambassadors, which in turn will have a positive effect on your company.

Every financial services organisation has a unique take on the world. But most struggle to be heard. Linstock Communications will share 10 Pearls of Wisdom on thought leadership marketing, helping organisations discover and give voice to ideas that change people's perspective on issues that matter. The webinar will explore: the naked truth about thought leadership, how you can build thought leadership into your communications strategy and ten key elements every thought leadership marketing campaign should contain.

Uber, Nike and their like, have turned branding on its head. They have created utilitarian global brands by inserting themselves into our daily lives using technology as their Trojan horse. And through this utility they have invested more meaning into their brands than any global advertising campaign ever could. Utilitarianism is the innovation frontier for financial services. How do traditional financial service companies reconfigure and transform their capabilities to innovate around their customers' needs and rebuild their brand meaning through utility, instead of advertising.

Since it made a debut in 2003, LinkedIn has evolved and enhanced its offerings.
Our mindset about how to use LinkedIn, however, has not evolved as quickly as the product.
If you haven’t changed your approach to LinkedIn, you’re missing out on some of the biggest benefits.
This free Webinar will enhance your understanding of this “professional network” and the fundamental benefits to you and your organization, including:
1. Linkedin: Why it’s a critical tool for financial service marketers in 2015
2. Company Brand: How your company profile can make or break you
3. Content: How the most successful companies use content to create their own LinkedIn profile

The title of The Forum’s Autumn 2015 conference was “20:20 vision” so asked our Members for their comments on their vision for the financial services industry in 2020 – insight into what the future might hold. We also went out on the street and got some vox pops from the general public.

Societal and technological changes are altering the way consumers interact with their bank. This in turn will shape the branch network of the future, both in terms of where branches will be located and their purpose/format. However, the impact of this change is not happening at the same rate across the UK and does vary according to local demographics.
Ian will demonstrate that the best way to optimise your branch network by 2020 is to make sure you take these local considerations into account: the best national picture is actually the sum of all the local situations.

In this provocative session, global futurist Rohit Talwar explores how industry strategies, businesses models and organisation design could develop in response to the evolution in social needs and expectations and a rapid acceleration in the capability of personal and corporate technologies. He describes a number of potentially disruptive ventures that could change the game in financial services and highlights practical strategies for firms that want to shape the future rather than be a casualty of it.

David describes the driving forces that are making wholesale change in financial services increasing inevitable and desirable for the industry’s participants, their clients and consumers and the regulator.

The third presentations from our recent Pensions Freedom event. The Pension bombshell dropped by The Chancellor in the March budget has galvanised the UK market. Recent research will show how the UK consumer has reacted to the changes. In other countries where savers do not have to buy annuities (e.g. Australia and USA) what do retirees do with their pension pots? What does the retirement income market look like and what products have developed and prospered? What has driven consumer behaviour in those markets? And, with the new pension flexibilities in the UK, what would be a good outcome from a regulatory perspective?

The second of three presentations from our recent Pensions Freedom event. The Pension bombshell dropped by The Chancellor in the March budget has galvanised the UK market. In other countries where savers do not have to buy annuities (e.g. Australia and USA) what do retirees do with their pension pots? What does the retirement income market look like and what products have developed and prospered?

The world of retail is moving at a rapid pace - driven by changing consumer behaviour and new technological advancements. Using digital to improve the online to instore experience has allowed us to be smarter marketers, this has resulted in better relevance to our customers, better service and as a result Halfords are doing more business.
Clive West, Head of Digital at Halfords, and Peter Veash, CEO of The BIO Agency, have been working closely together to join up the customer experience and drive digital innovation in the business. During this session, they’ll give some insight into the customer behaviour and some of the advancements they have made.

Simon will discuss how customer conversations in technology are dominated by three key areas; Mobility, Collaboration and Cloud. External pressures from consumers around the latest smart phones and tablets fuel the BYOD debate, which in turn present opportunities for richer collaboration, and new consumption models from the cloud. Simon will also highlight how BT plays a leading role around key areas of technology, has a significant heritage in
research and continues to scout for new innovation. Simon is responsible for global Innovation within BT’s Portfolio and Service Design team and the global Chief Technology Officer programme. Simon is also responsible for setting the thought leadership agenda and leading the team globally.

Social media has a proven track record of building stronger bonds with consumers in a market where trust has increasingly becoming an issue. Is social media and mobile the way forward in general insurance?

(Includes some mobile phone audio interference) More consumers are adapting to the ever growing world of social media and mobile. Is there a future here for the general insurance sector? Are companies doing enough in this space? Pete Markey takes us through the RSA journey and gives examples of innovation in this sector.

Organisations large and small can struggle with internal communications.

In this webinar, experienced brand managers talk about what works and what doesn't in the crucial area of internal brand development.

In people businesses, which almost all financial services businesses are, brands are built from within. Without strong internal buy-in, the chances of success in the external marketplace are negligible. Yet the fact is that most internal brand-building initiatives achieve little - and many are actually counter-productive, leading to an increase in off-brand behaviour.

The Forum is a community of marketing leaders from across all sectors of the financial services industry. The Forum’ help its Members improve their marketing effectiveness through a calendar of 50+ seminars and conferences per annum, access to a web-based Knowledge Centre archive of marketing intelligence, and via a journal, Argent.